Of course the conversation last night veered towards the Billy May's death, the Farrah Fawcett ass cancer (Helloooo I don't mean to speak ill of the dead, but am I the only one who didn't know she had ASS cancer? And how the heck do you get ASS cancer?) and of course the shocking death of Michael Jackson. We started talking about how we are all so shocked he had died, etc., etc. Then we started discussing my sisters FB status about Michael Jackson and it was "Michael Jackson...I wonder what God is going to say to him..." Someone had written back about how they thought God would ask them if MJ knew him, and they started speculating how they did not think the response was going to be very good....Ok so skip forward to Sunday night, so amongst our big dining room table we started a rowdy discussion of the FB comment and I mentioned I'm sure that across the churches in America that day the Pastor's probably mentioned how MJ had died and was going to burn in hell and he got what he deserved because he was a sinner, and then he probably followed up with some scripture and passed the offering bucket around... So then my mom was telling us how she heard that Andrae Crouch was able to lead Michael Jackson to the Lord 3 weeks before he died. Also before I get to my main point I need to interject one other small note. Last Sunday we had a guest speaker come to our church and he was talking about how he got kicked out of a church because he was saying that in one the CA wildfires, houses all around Oprah's house were burning down but hers was left untouched. He wondered to the Pastor if God spared her house because she was such a giver (giving being a big thing in the Bible)...The Pastor said no and that Oprah was leading people to hell, and he was never invited back that church...
Ok so now that I have given you all of that info I can share with you the spiritual epiphany I had last night.
If you only know me via my blog, you may not know that from the time I could blink basically I have been in church. Every time the doors were opened there my family was. I was on the worship team, at youth group every Friday night, signed the purity contract, threw away my secular music after every Acquire The Fire, was homeschooled so I didn't have to be influenced by those bad, bad public school kids. And when I graduated I packed right up and went on to Bible School (until I got, more or less kicked out, but that's another story for another time). So me, I'm a Christian girl, I always have sought to do my best living my life the way I was taught I should in youth group and camp meetings. But then I went to Bible school. In 2004 my life and my mindset completely changed. Was it a good or bad change? Well that depends on who you ask. After I left Bible school I struggled a lot with Christianity. Not so much the objective of Christianity, I didn't doubt a lot of things I had been taught, but I started to see Christians as a big group of hypocritical, lying, heathens that put on their ties and stockings on Sunday and pretend they are better then the man who sleeps in on Sunday morning. For the past 5 years I have really struggled with what it means to really be a follower of Christ. I never went crazy and did drugs or slept around with a bunch of different guys. I was pretty tame compared to others. But I did smoke a cigarette once or five times. I did get drunk twice, swore I would never do it again and I haven't, I dated, I would go to the guy of the moments house unsupervised, I listened to secular music, I watched Soap Operas (ooooo the horror!), and I had I committed the most unforgivable sin..I lived with a man and had a baby out of wedlock. But even in my "backslidden" state I never stopped loving the Lord. I never stopped praying or reading my Bible. I never stopped going to church (well I did for a bit, but for other reasons), I never stopped believing in all that I had been taught. That's why when last summer someone had commented on FB that they weren't aware I was even serving the Lord, (I guess it was my big belly that threw them off the scent)the comment enraged me. I didn't understand how someone who I hadn't seen in 4 or 5 years and even barely knew could make an assumption like that. And so I figured I must really be a sinner uh? That is until last night...I believe that we (meaning us Christians) have gotten this entire thing completely wrong. After the initial shock of MJ dying wore off I felt myself getting sad because I thought "Wow he was just an amazing musical genius here on earth, it's a shame he died and now won't get to go to Heaven" I struggled with that last week because from what I know about MJ he has had a terrible life. He had great success with his career, great financial success (minus the millions of debt he's in now) but yet he was such a hurting person. It was like the media keeps calling him this "man-child" a conflicted man who didn't really know who he was. I started to think that it was really unfair that he would have to go to hell.
But last night I was hit with such astounding clarity about this Christianity thing and being saved, that it made me wonder about all I've known for the last 16 years. Here's my disclaimer. I know some of the people who read my blog, and some of you I don't know. Some of those I know are unfortunately probably going to be offended by this. I apologize. Certainly not my intention. My theory could be completely and utterly wrong. I'm not saying I'm right. I won't know until I get to heaven and I hope that is a looooooooooooooong time from now. But sorry if I offend anyone, you are more then welcome to delete me and my heathenistic ways from FB, MySpace,Twitter, Blog List, or what have you.
This post will cease for now, as I still have about 100 hours of work left to do and I don't want it to get to long that no one reads it. Part 2 shall follow shortly....
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